Plot twist: James Comey sent FBI emails from a private account

Of all the revelations in the Justice Department inspector general's report on the FBI's handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, perhaps the most surprising is the news that former FBI Director James Comey used a private Gmail account for official business. "We identified numerous instances in which Comey used a personal email account (a Gmail account) to conduct FBI business," writes Inspector General Michael Horowitz in the report, going on to cite five examples.

Asked about the use of his personal email, Comey told the investigators, "I did not have an unclass[ified] FBI connection at home that worked. And I didn't bother to fix it, whole 'nother story, but I would either use my Blackberry, must have been, or Samsung … Or if I needed to write something longer, I would type it on my personal laptop and then sent it to [James] Rybicki, usually I copied my own address." Comey said he only used his personal account and laptop "when I needed to word process an unclassified [document] that was going to be disseminated broadly, [such as a] public speech or public email to the whole organization."

When asked if using his personal email in such a way was in line with department protocol, Comey said: "I don't know. I think so, but I don't know." The inspector general confirmed "Comey's use of a personal email account on multiple occasions for unclassified FBI business to be inconsistent with the DOJ policy statement."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The news is an especially bitter pill for Hillary Clinton's supporters to swallow, as many blame Comey for her election loss. In July 2016, Comey famously summarized Clinton's use of a private email server as being "extremely careless," even as he said she was not guilty of any crime.